Tag: duo

Princess Unknown – 30th December 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

She made me dream
She made me wonder
She made me feel
I’m nearing six feet under

And she didn’t do anything
She just simply needed to be
I don’t know who she was
And she certainly didn’t know me

Across the room
She quietly sat
And suddenly
My world no longer flat

She stood up and walked around
And I followed with my stare
I lived a life in ten minutes
Of which she was completely unaware

So I give thanks
Princess unknown
To the thought
That you’ll never be alone

Make sure to live a life complete
My all your dreams come true
And if you never live another day
At least someone remembered you

29th Aug 2024 – Shared with Word of the Day Challenge – unknown
3rd Dec 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – unknown

I was ashamed of myself when I realised that life was a costume party; and I attended with my real face.

Franz Kafka

Today I’m feeling:
Tired and ok
Today I’m grateful for:
The parking officer at the hotel in the city, who has always been nice and helpful. Amy remembers him from when she was younger and he was always nice even then.
The best thing about today was:
A night out in the city. I haven’t been here all year. It’s different and interesting to see what’s going on even though it doesn’t excite me. The main part of the city is really for tourists and I’m not a tourist anymore.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
My exhaustion from driving yesterday knocked me out until about 5pm, knowing I had to go out for the evening. I just slept and watched tv until then when I finally started to feel normal again. Now I’m giving in to the urge to medicate with alcohol, cocktails are all this old man can manage. I hope tomorrow doesn’t hate me too much.
Something I learned today?
Some new exercises for my aching hips. The pain is getting worse and I just hope I can avoid any major complications by doing some exercises. My neck has improved somewhat since using stretch bands to work my shoulders. Pain just moves around my body from one place to the next. I need to exercise everything all day if I want to maintain but who’s going to do that?
How do you feel about video games?
I like them but I’m too old for them now. My eyes can’t keep up with the action on the screen. Modern games seem to promote excitement over gameplay which is not so interesting to me. I got into video games during their introduction and watched their early evolution carefully. If I was a kid today I’m sure I’d be sucked into them. Real life is a video game.

I took this picture because I’m here with Amy for a night out and the guy in black I’d like to see break out into some D Boon licks and bouncing around the stage. But I’m afraid Chiang Rai isn’t ready for that.

GuiGuiSuiSui – The Court of King Nitro – 8th January 2015

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 167TZM

Originally from Dartford, England (spiritual home of, ahem, minor blues appropriators such as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), one man DIY punk/blues/horror artist, GUIGUISUISUI, aka Dann Gaymer, started making dark garage blues on a variety of instruments including a one stringed skateboard guitar (The Diddly Board) in the freezing cold of Changchun, Northeast China in 2012. While working with a variety of side men including beatboxers, various percussionists and drummers, as well as a punk rock rhythm section dubbed The Electric Shadows, GUIGUISUISUI settled on a one man band format after relocating to Beijing in the summer of 2013. That same year, Gaymer headed out on a rather unrepresented, borderline masochistic 40+ date Asian Tour which shocked, confused and at times, downright befuddled punters across the entirety of the Far East.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Gaymer began hastily demoing a brand spanking new batch of evil tinged, garage inflected GUIGUISUISUI material immediately upon returning to his home base deep within the confines of the Red Capital.

Engineered, mixed and co-produced by luminary Beijing producer/sonic journeyman extraordinaire, Yan Haisong (P.K.14, Dear Eloise) at Psychic Kong, The Court of King Necro 7″ finds Gaymer delving into four tracks of lo-fi, psychedelic scuzz rock lined with a healthy dose of Delta Blues. Think spiritual/musical mentors, The Rolling Stones, at their most avant garde, stripped down and devoid of overt glam pretense. Yet, when it comes to art rock, GUIGUISUISUI, has forged his own peculiar brand that exists on the dirtier more wanton side of the experimental blues rock stratosphere.

Strictly limited to a run of 500 copies on high quality, weighted black vinyl, The Court of Necro 7″ features hand silk screened/assembled cover art by infamous British punk rock fixture The Craw. If that’s not enough we’re throwing in a hand made badge and a couple of individually pressed buttons which tie in with GUIGUISUISUI’s overall artistic vision for this one of a kind, highly collectible piece of 33 RPM sonic ephemera. Get ’em while they’re hot folks…hot as the visage of hell which inspired this assemblage of wicked passion! 

GUIGUISUISUI is
Dann Gaymer – vocals, guitar, harmonica and percussion
King Necro – The Diddlly Board

Drums on ‘Eighteen Shakes’ and ‘Lamp Post Blues’ by Michael Cupoli

All songs by GUIGUISUISUI except ‘Preaching Blues’ by Son House and ‘Eighteen Shakes’ by Pairs.

Artwork by The Craw

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Yang Haisong at Psychic Kong, Beijing CHINA.

GR034
genjingrecords.com

Alpine Decline – Night of the Long Knives – 10th October 2013

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 155TZM

One year after spiriting off to China, Alpine Decline return with their fourth album, “Night of the Long Knives”. Descending from the high altitude visions of their previous records, the duo walks us gassed out and head numb through chaos and time sickness, deep into the ruins of ancient alleyways and naked skyscrapers. This time under the expansive sonics of producer (and China punk godfather) Yang Haisong, “Night of the Long Knives” is Alpine Decline surfacing from the Beijing haze maze at the height of their powers, crafting songs with the ghost-memory quality of myths and guiding us deep into the cinematic and stereoscopic landscape of their world, real and apocryphal.

Somehow sounding both clearer and denser than their previous albums, “Night of the Long Knives” opens with “Day 213”, a broken transmission from the site of the band’s crash landing. Stepping away from the rubble, we again walk with the duo through a landscape that is equal parts fascination and horror (although never cynical, never sneering). This fourth album presents some of the bands most accessible, nearly pop moments, masterfully folded into experimentation and sonic exploration. From the deep hooks of “Drunk on Crystal Fire” to the zombie lurch of “Industrial/Domestic”, “Night of the Long Knives” is an album that proves, once again, Alpine Decline are making some of the most creative, exciting albums anywhere on the planet.

Alpine Decline – Visualizations – 9th October 2013

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Cat #: 149TZM

In the Spring of 2010, their self-titled debut still cooling on the racks, Alpine Decline left the sun-stained Sierra Nevada to trek through China from the Eastern capital to the Himalaya peaks in Tibet. Returning to the studio – this time working with L.A. experimental artist M. Geddes Gengras (Robedoor, Pocahaunted, The Congos) – the duo poured all the captured spirits of their journey into “Visualizations”, a ten-track-trip that revels in their expanded visions.

Though clearly a rock album, the songs on “Visualizations” seem to emerge from a more fleshed out landscape, with the guitars and drums rising up from a mist of drones that are sometimes ghostly and sometimes the full-throated OM of the otherworld. The songwriting and melodic craftsmanship, with vocals ripped up and glued together on magnetic tape, is more fleshed out than their debut, their identity more firmly realized, from the heart-pounding “Enter the Bullet” and “CCTV” to the mournful dreams of “The Fever Subsides” and “Deeper into the Part”. “Visualizations” lets you travel with Alpine Decline through provinces of electronic waste and shadow-warped night markets, dropping you off at the final notes short of breath but exhilarated.

Dear Eloise – The Winter That Disappeared – 17th May 2013

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Cat #: 136TZM

Since their inception in 2008, Beijing alchemists Dear Eloise have issued a steady stream of releases from their home studio that have been well-received by fans and critics alike despite shying away from performing live (they do not) and courting the media (they do not do that, either), instead quietly giving flight to their indelible fuzz-soaked concoctions and letting them speak for themselves.

“The Winter That Disappeared,” the duo’s fourth 7” on tenzenmen (and seventh release overall), is a departure from the playful shoegaze-influenced pop purity of their earlier work, tacking down a darker path with two self-produced cuts pressed on emerald-green vinyl.

“Vanishing Winter,” the A-side, forcefully announces itself with multi-instrumentalist Yang Haisong’s rhythmic ice-brittle guitar anchored by a trotting bass. In the background, a second unleashed guitar taps out bright arpeggios and Sun Xia’s disembodied ethereal voice rises and falls—nowhere and everywhere. And that ever-present fuzz glows like banked coals.

Behind the omniscient crackling and hissing like crossed wires from a supernatural radio transmission, the simple chord progressions and ghostlike vocals of the B-side, “The Place in White Light,” attempt to penetrate the dissonant wall like green springtime shoots. But they don’t—the static thickens and grows increasingly anxious before the rhythm section, a dirgelike bassline and percussive fills, are abruptly swallowed and extinguished like a candle snuffed by an unworldly presence. 

The Dyne – Swim . Fly Roots – 14th May 2013

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Cat #: 144TZM

With it’s shimmering guitars and bubbling bassline structured by crisp percussion work, the instrumental “Swim” glides along like a hot rod on a starless night, seductive, deadly and ready to pounce.

On the flipside, “Fly Roots” showcases the pair’s theory that vocals are best used sparingly, in this case, as another tool in the duo’s melodic toolbox, one that neatly accentuates that atmospheric, cascading tremolo and abrupt tempo changes marked by crisp percussive work.

Recorded over a weekend in Nov 2012 with acclaimed Genjing Records producer Yang Haisong, Swim. Fly Roots triumphantly emphasizes that Beijing’s musicians are spearheading an East Asian creative renaissance. “We’re currently in the era of a new enlightenment,” guitarist/bassist Si Yunge cooly remarked from behind his trademark shades. “We hope that more and more people will learn more about what we’re doing here in China.”

Death To Giants – Blood Pours Out – 4th May 2013

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Cat #: 143TZM

Blood Pours Out is the debut album from Shanghai two-piece Death to Giants, and serves as an apt introduction to the band. The songs on the album arose largely organically, as drummer Ivan and bassist Dennis recorded a series of jams in practice studios around the city. They went on to choose the tastiest bits from those recordings, and stitched them together to form the songs present here. Contents are highly flammable — ingest with care.

Death to Giants is:
Ivan: Drums and Vocals
Nichols: Bass and Vocals

Recorded on Saturday, November 13th, 2012 at db Studios by Ryan Baird of iAmalam
Mixed and Mastered in December 2012 at Studio Poney by Laura Ingalls of The Horses/Acid Pony Club
Artwork and design by Ivan Belcic
Cover photo by Kaine Lyu of Astrofuck

All Songs written by Nichols and Ivan
“30 Extra Lives” is based on “The Knitting Song” by Boys Climbing Ropes (boysclimbingropes.bandcamp.com)

Dear Eloise – Song For Her -17th February 2012

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Cat #: 071TZM

This is the second 7″ single from Dear Eloise. The A side “Song for Her” is taken from their sophomore release Beauty in Strangers on Maybe Mars/tenzenmen (2012). 

DEAR ELOISE 

Yang Haisong – Guitar / Drums 
Sun Xia – Vocals 

Produced by Dear Eloise 
Recorded & Mixed by Dear Eloise at No. 13 studio 

Produced in conjunction with Genjing Records, Maybe Mars and Share in Obstacles

mr. sterile Assembly – Transit – 1st April 2011

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Cat #: 054TZM

Recorded at Mike Gibson’s Inca Studios, the old home of the NZ SIS, the Security Intelligence Service, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

mr sterile: Drums, lyrics, vocals, noises 
Chrissie Butler: Bass, vocals 
Aaron Lloydd: Bass 
Jeff Henderson: Saxophone 
Nell Thomas: Gender (Javanese gamelan) 
Maria McMillan: Poet, words in Drought 
Dean Hapeta: Recording, lyrics & vocals 
Mike Gibson: Recording, mixing, mastering. 

Artists: 
Campbell Kneale 
Tao Wells 
Garage Collective 
James Robinson 
Stefan Neville 
Jeff Henderson 
Andrew Ross 
Suhartono 
Deborah Barton 
Roger Morris 
Kerry Ann Lee 

For this project, all the above members, musician, word smiths, and visual artists, are included in the pantheon of members-of-mr-sterile-Assembly.